Porter contract extension is drafted

Monroe County schools Superintendent Mark Porter deserves a $15,000 annual raise to earn $165,000 and a contract that runs through July 30, 2020, according to the first draft of a proposed deal released Friday.

The proposed contract also adds two new figures: $650 per month in mileage and car expenses and $1,500 for a fund Porter may tap for “civic and community activities” he thinks will help promote good public relations.

Porter was hired in 2012 at an annual salary of $150,000, becoming the first schools chief in the Florida Keys not chosen by the voters in the wake of the Monique Acevedo embezzlement scandal.

Since then, however, Porter hasn’t received a raise and until recently, was job-hunting for superintendent of larger districts Sarasota and St. Johns.

The Monroe County School Board meets Dec. 13 at Coral Shores High School in Tavernier, with a workshop set for 3:30 p.m. and a regular meeting set for 5.

Porter’s contract is listed under the workshop’s agenda, budgeted for 15 minutes, and as of Friday wasn’t scheduled for a vote.

Also on Dec. 13, the board will consider approving a $623,721 digital classroom plan that has already been budgeted. Administrator Theresa Axford will make a presentation about the plan during the workshop and the item is on the 5 p.m. meeting agenda under action items. The plan includes in 2017 spending more than $385,000 to buy 1,010 mobile devices for all third- and fourth-grade students.

Harassment suit

A federal lawsuit filed by the parents of an unidentified girl who formerly attended Stanley Switlik Elementary School in Marathon has been set for trial Aug. 7, 2017.

The lawsuit accuses school employees, from the teachers and a bus driver to administrators, of ignoring the second-grade girl’s reports in 2011 of a boy in her class groping her — at times on a daily basis — while at school.

Teachers at times punished the girl for complaining, the suit claims, as the sexual harassment went on for two years until the girl left for middle school.

The suit, named for Jane Doe No. 53, was filed May 11, 2015, in U.S. District Court in Key West. Mediation talks earlier this year failed, according to court records, and two months later the family’s original attorneys withdrew from the case citing irreconcilable differences.

In October, the family’s new attorney also withdrew. It was unclear Friday who the family’s attorney is. The case is not on the School Board’s Dec. 13 agenda but members have discussed it before in closed session.

This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Porter contract extension is drafted."